Yeremia 6:23

6:23 Its soldiers are armed with bows and spears.

They are cruel and show no mercy.

They sound like the roaring sea

as they ride forth on their horses.

Lined up in formation like men going into battle

to attack you, Daughter Zion.’” ¹ 

Yeremia 12:13

12:13 My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. ² 

They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it.

They will be disappointed in their harvests ³ 

because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. ⁴ 

Yeremia 26:3

26:3 Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do. ⁵  If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them ⁶  as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing. ⁷ 

Yeremia 35:2

35:2 “Go to the Rechabite community. ⁸  Invite them to come into one of the side rooms ⁹  of the Lord’s temple and offer them some wine to drink.”

Yeremia 36:3

36:3 Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the disaster I intend to bring on them, they will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing. ¹⁰  If they do, I will forgive their sins and the wicked things they have done.” ¹¹ 

Yeremia 50:6

50:6 “My people have been lost sheep.

Their shepherds ¹²  have allow them to go astray.

They have wandered around in the mountains.

They have roamed from one mountain and hill to another. ¹³ 

They have forgotten their resting place.

[6:23]  ¹ sn Jerualem is personified as a young maiden helpless before enemy attackers.

[12:13]  ² sn Invading armies lived off the land, using up all the produce and destroying everything they could not consume.

[12:13]  ³ tn The pronouns here are actually second plural: Heb “Be ashamed/disconcerted because of your harvests.” Because the verb form (וּבֹשׁוּ, uvoshu) can either be Qal perfect third plural or Qal imperative masculine plural many emend the pronoun on the noun to third plural (see, e.g., BHS). However, this is the easier reading and is not supported by either the Latin or the Greek which have second plural. This is probably another case of the shift from description to direct address that has been met with several times already in Jeremiah (the figure of speech called apostrophe; for other examples see, e.g., 9:4; 11:13). As in other cases the translation has been leveled to third plural to avoid confusion for the contemporary English reader. For the meaning of the verb here see BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2 and compare the usage in Jer 48:13.

[12:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “be disappointed in their harvests from the fierce anger of the Lord.” The translation makes explicit what is implicit in the elliptical poetry of the Hebrew original.

[26:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “will turn from his wicked way.”

[26:3]  ⁶ tn For the idiom and translation of terms involved here see 18:8 and the translator’s note there.

[26:3]  sn The Lord is being consistent in the application of the principle laid down in Jer 18:7-8 that reformation of character will result in the withdrawal of the punishment of “uprooting, tearing down, destroying.” His prophecies of doom are conditional threats, open to change with change in behavior.

[26:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “because of the wickedness of their deeds.”

[35:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “the house of the Rechabites.” “House” is used here in terms of “household” or “family” (cf. BDB 109 s.v. בַּיִת 5.a, b).

[35:2]  sn Nothing is known about the Rechabite community other than what is said about them in this chapter. From vv. 7-8 it appears that they were a nomadic tribe that had resisted settling down and taking up farming. They had also agreed to abstain from drinking wine. Most scholars agree in equating the Jonadab son of Rechab mentioned as the leader who had instituted these strictures as the same Jonadab who assisted Jehu in his religious purge of Baalism following the reign of Ahab (2 Kgs 10:15, 23-24). If this is the case, the Rechabites followed these same rules for almost 250 years because Jehu’s purge of Baalism and the beginning of his reign was in 841 b.c. and the incident here took place some time after Jehoiakim’s rebellion in 603 b.c. (see the study note on v. 1).

[35:2]  ⁹ sn This refers to one of the rooms built on the outside of the temple that were used as living quarters for the priests and for storage rooms (cf. Neh 13:4-5; 1 Kgs 6:5; 1 Chr 28:12; 2 Chr 31:11 and compare Ezek 41:1-14).

[36:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will turn each one from his wicked way.”

[36:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “their iniquity and their sin.”

[36:3]  sn The offer of withdrawal of punishment for sin is consistent with the principles of Jer 18:7-8 and the temple sermon delivered early in the reign of this king (cf. 26:1-3; 7:5-7).

[50:6]  ¹² sn The shepherds are the priests, prophets, and leaders who have led Israel into idolatry (2:8).

[50:6]  ¹³ sn The allusion here, if it is not merely a part of the metaphor of the wandering sheep, is to the worship of the false gods on the high hills (2:20, 3:2).